Security in Context: The BeyondTrust Blog

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Internet Explorer 8 0day

Posted May 6, 2013 BeyondTrust Research Team

Last week, news broke that the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DoL) website was compromised… and that it had been serving up Internet Explorer 0day to its visitors. This 0day, CVE-2013-1347 (Retina Audit 19041 – Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (Zero-Day)), only affects Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (as well as Server 2003, 2008, and 2008 R2). However, the exploit used on the U.S. Department of Labor website only targeted Windows XP machines. Here’s what else you need to know:

• Grants arbitrary code execution within the context of the currently logged on user (least privilege environment, anyone?)

So what can you do right now to protect your organization? If possible, use another browser like Chrome or Firefox, disable Active Scripting if you still have to use IE8, do not run as Administrator, and finally, upgrade – Internet Explorer 9 and 10 are not vulnerable to this issue.

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